He groaned and opened his eyes, the ceiling was what graced his view. His head ached, his back stung, and his senses were screaming for him to do anything to make it go away.
The taste of bile and various vegetables filled his mouth and snout; making his groaning more unpleasant was the burning sensation along his chest. Every deep breath made him winney softly until he took in where he was.
On his coffee table in his living room, laying on several alcohol bottles that were full the evening before, or maybe the day before?
Some clinked to the floor and others made the sound of broken glass as they hit the floor, the thought ran through his mind of exactly how much was imbedded in his back this time.
He rolled to his right, falling to the floor with a heavy thud, forcing the air from his lungs with a pained moan.
He placed his left hoof firmly on the floor and forced himself up, trying to think of why he needed to rise in the first place. Sleep, even though he didn’t feel anything from it, was better than being awake.
The sound of a bottle breaking made him snicker as he placed his other forehoof down, followed by his rear legs. Pain throbbed in the pad of his hoof as he took a pace and nickered at the dull but anoying throb.
He stumbled to the left, his flanks falling to the floor as the room twisted. He focused his eyes at the coffee table to his right; a small pile of white and yellow powder. He sighed with a smile and leaned toward it, his left hoof rising instinctively as he fell forward.
His head collided with the coffee table.
Some of the powder spilled to the floor in front of him. As some blood wept from the wound on his forehead; he ignored it and pushed his nose to what he could, snorting loudly from the wooden floor.
His head buzzed and he felt his sinuses burn as he sighed and forced himself up again, looking at the small drops of blood on the floor from his wounds.
“Ugh, buck my hoof in the plot hole.”
He ignored walking on his injured hoof and hobbled ahead, aiming at the kitchen. He felt his focus rising as he made his way, trying to remember why he had to wake up.
His back itched but knew better than to scratch it, sending more glass deeper into his back, again, would just upset the doctor.
He heard the rushing of water as he reached the kitchen and looked at the sink.
“Bucking thing’s off. What’s the water… Oh,” he finished as he felt warmth on his right rear leg. Shrugging his self urination off he continued to the sink and turned on the water.
“Cold as… something cold,” he mumbled as he put his injured hoof under the water and groaned again.
“Stupid glass, gotta start buying, not glass.”
A few minutes passed, feeling like an eternity, but really only a few seconds for him, he heard a pounding on his apartment door.
He turned and hobbled quickly to the door, cracking it open and looking out to the mare looking at him with concern.
“Ev, are you alright? I heard a lot of noise, some glass and… You’re bleeding again, can I help you?” she asked as he turned away to look at his apartment. Spartan and messy, urine and a small pile of feces in the corner.
Various drugs scattered around and alcohol containers, mostly nearly completely drained, across the floor around his couch.
“No, ah, I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, um, if you need me,” she said hesitantly, “I’ll be right across the hall.”
“You’re ugly. I’m drunk. I can stop drinking,” he said as he slammed the door loudly and turned back to his sink.
He almost made it before turning and laying on the floor by the kitchen drawers. He laid his head down and felt sleep tugging at him as he fought to stay awake.
“More snuff, stay awake.”
He moved and began to vomit, slipping and landing his chest in it as he retched several times, mostly liquid, before giving up and falling asleep, whimpering. He knew what dreams would come, the nightmares, the memories.
Ever Last laid in his bed, the sound of his parents shouting. A common occurrence in his life. The neighbors knew the routine, four nights a week. Every night after his mother would return from work she’d begin shouting at his father for being a lazy, ignorant, stay at home stallion.
His other mom worked at the bookstore, earning a fraction of what she did and seeming to be a waste of a herd member.
What nopony knew, except for their small family herd was what would happen after the shouting ended.
Drinking. His parents would drink, a lot.
His father would retire to bed with his mom while his mother would stay up, until going to his room.
“Ev? You awake?” she’d ask.
No matter if he was asleep or awake she’d approach and pat his side until she saw him stir.
“Please, mommy, I’m too sleepy.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I love you and you know that, right?”
He’d groan but she’d climb into his bed and wrap her limbs around him until she started to fall asleep.
Her foreleg would move in small circles on his side, slowly moving down his body.
“I love you, Ev,” she’d whisper into his ear before she bit it softly and let her hoof start rubbing his sheathed member.
“You’re the real stallion of this house.”
He startled awake, alert and at the border of sobriety and the drug crash.
“What the heck happened,” he asked as he forced himself up, slipping but catching himself and groaning at the state of his living space.
“Please, Celestia, don’t let my room be ruined,” he whined, knowing it was the only safe room in the house. The only room he took care of, just like he was raised to. Just like his father liked.
He loved his father. The only other pony in the world who knew the pain his mother would bring, but couldn’t do anything to stop it.
The town was small, and secrets were sparse, but their family secret would risk ruining more than their family. Their family ran the local tavern, they’d lose business. They’d lose money. They’d lose their house.
He went to the counter and opened a door, quickly patching and bandaging his hoof, before he went to the closet and gathered what he needed to sweep the glass from the floor.
He wasted no time cleaning up the shards, stopping to snort the drugs from the table he sighed happily as he finished cleaning. He had even wiped the vomit and rinsed the towels without noticing that he’d wiped his chest clean.
“Heh, drugs are awesome,” he chuckled as he put away his cleaning equipment and went to his room.
Frowning he sniffed the room and looked out the window, the only one with curtains drawn. The afternoon light brightening his bed and sending a flash of memories he hated to the surface of his mind. He entered and quickly went to the closet, donned a tunic, and left his apartment.
“Oh, hello miss Mist,” he greeted his neighbor as he exited the apartments to the mare sitting outside on a rocker.
She forced a smile at him, knowing his bad habits and memory.
“Good late afternoon, Ev. Have a good morning so far?”
“Oh, uh, I slept in. I’ve gotta go see the doctor for my checkup. You know, sleeping too much again,” he said as he walked past her into the dry street.
The rough, tan gravel roads were the bane of his hoof as he made his way through the town, smiling and waving.
He sighed and his heart ached as he approached the doctor’s office.
Fate was a cruel bitch.
The doctor had taken over his old house after his family had moved, years before.
He entered the house and stared at the floor, making his way to his father and mom’s room after the nurse pointed him to the exam room.
An hour later he was glass free and he was on his way to spend the next couple days living his life, working his job at the tavern, and stealing alcohol as he often as he could until his next day off.
“Ev, roll over. Something’s on your belly. I think you’re hurt. I’d better kiss it better.”
Ever Last opened his eyes and sighed, his bed was slightly wet, his cock was out, and he smelled the stench of his semen.
Rolling out of bed he quickly changed the sheets, made it nicely and opened the curtains. The setting sun graced him as he turned to leave the room. Another night of drinking and drugs.
“Mother, why?”
He woke up lying on his couch on his belly, legs splayed out, spread eagle and drooling.
“What time’s it?” he asked the pillow under his face.
Rolling off the couch he whined as he moved his stiff limbs, a hypodermic needle falling from his foreleg with a drug cocktail he didn’t know, but it helped his memory fade; for a while.
The sound of sucking, the feel of his mother’s tongue gliding along his cock, the moaning she made at his expense while he clutched his stuffed gryphon to his chest.
He reached for another bottle, whatever it was it burned his throat as he drank it. Four swallows, his stomach burned now; sending his mind reeling. He sobbed as he drank another swig and looked to the kitchen.
“Toh-now.”
He scrambled as quickly to the kitchen with his bottle of liquor in his mouth, dropping it to the floor, and opened a drawer, pulled his favorite knife out and sat on the floor.
He laid it on the floor before him and looked at it.
Drinking more he began to cry; tears falling onto the knife between his legs.
“Why, mother?”
She climbed on top of him, facing away and slowly took him inside of her.
“Oh, only eleven and you’re the biggest stallion in the house,” she said as she leaned forward and rocked her hips.
He picked up the blade in his right hoof, holding it tightly. He brought it to his foreleg and lightly traced it across the inside, smiling as it cut through his flesh easily.
Blood oozing from the wound as he moved it to his neck, slicing gently lengthwise.
Reaching below he sliced above his sheath, a pleasurable shudder went through him as he dropped the blade and took a couple more swigs.
He began to fall asleep, pain was his friend.
His mother rocked on top of him. It felt good. He felt his body trembling as she mewled and grunted, tighter she got as he sat up.
Pleasure rushing through him as he dropped his soft toy and grabbed her mane, restraining the primitive winney that accompanied his dry orgasm.
He felt every twinge of his mother's insides as she slowly slid of his glistening member until it flopped and smacked his chest.
“I love you, Ev,” she’d whisper as she laid next to him again, wrapping him in a cuddle. She always fell asleep right away, leaving him to think about the events over and over.
He opened his eyes and felt cold. Icy cold shivers ran through his body as he sighed a chilled breath.
“Help,” he whispered as he laid on the floor of his bedroom, blood ran under his body. He’d finally cut himself too deeply, somehow making it to his room.
“Daddy,” he panted as he looked in front of himself, a photo had been torn, removing the mares of his life and leaving only his father and himself.
Sitting side by side, grinning happily by a statue of Luna in Canterlot. One of the best memories of his young life was that vacation. It must have been well after midnight when he came to, it was dark and cold.
The window curtains were drawn but no stars were out. Evening showers weren’t planned, why was the sky dark?
He moved his forelegs with a lot of effort and began to pull himself to the picture, grasping it in his hoof he brought it to his cheek.
“I love you daddy,” he said in a deep whisper, “but, I don’t wanna go the same way.”
He placed the photo back and turned to face the doorway. He whimpered at the trail of blood that led into his room.
If his father were there, he’d be so sad at the mess he’d have to clean up.
Even when Ever Last had walked into the bathroom to find his father’s lifeless body, drained of nearly all its blood, with cuts so deep into his flesh, young Ever could see bones and the layers of skin and fat…
The room was sparkling, as though he’d ended his life and cleaned up afterwards. A stallion dying of suicide in the bathtub was rare, but there wasn’t a drop of the red life fluid anywhere but on the bottom of the tub.
He remembered that the town had to cease drinking tap water for a week, as he dragged himself toward the door.
The risk of having meat, blood, an unwanted bodily fluid in the drinking water was worse than taboo.
His mother sunk into depression at the loss of her husband and sold the tavern.
His mom couldn’t live with the stigma and moved away, followed by his mother passing shortly after.
He was left alone in the house, he’d had since he was foaled. Every room held memories, the ones that made his heart ache from sorrow and pain filled rage were the rooms where he’d play with his father, later to be violated by what his mother would do to him.
The hours he’d play with his friends were overshadowed by the minutes that would turn to an hour of his mother’s unwelcome affections.
Every room was tainted and poisoned, with memories.
He looked through the doorway and pulled himself, aided by the desire to make his father proud of his strength through the threshold and into the living room.
His memories rushed back to the house he lived in.
...
The bathroom he never used, ever, since that hurtful night; having to choose to use a garbage pail, sink, go outside in the bushes, or travel to a neighbor’s to release his daily waste.
He had to sell the house when he was twenty four. He was alone and tried to use the bathroom, finally. Nine years after his father died. Six years after his mother had left him.
Two years since he began using drugs. One year before he began to drink, realizing it took the memories away. On that anniversary, the day he walked in the room to find his father dead in the bathtub, he drank enough to forget his name.
He used enough drugs to stop the heart of a horse.
He even hired the town prostitute and cried into her neck for longer than he kept track. He vaguely recalled her saying cries are free… Then he was looking at the tub, still centered in the room as a centerpiece of crafted porcelain mastery.
The hot baths that would be drawn, how he’d play in the water until it was icy cold; he recalled refusing to leave, even when his body shivered.
The bathroom was organized and the floor polished. Dust lingered in the air and a thin veil coated everything in the room. If his father was there, not a speck of dust would be spared his wrath.
A towel, yellow he preferred, always nearby. A spray bottle of cleaner within reach. A determined love of his house and family. A beacon of stallion pride for the community… And he died, bled to death in his bathtub.
Ever had reached the kitchen when he took notice of the knife on the floor, the blood began there and showed him having walked, stumbling, away from it. A slice of flesh was on the knife, sending chills from his middle back to his tail as he turned and went to the door.
Without hesitation he placed his the tip of his right hoof into a looped string on the floor, dragged it back, then laid down, sleep claiming him.
“Maybe, I’ll see you, tonight, daddy,” he whispered as he fell asleep.
Ever Last opened his eyes and took in a deep breath. The air smelt of blood, copper, and his father’s natural scent.
The scent of the stallion he had cuddled into every morning after his mother had violated him. The voice and soft fur of the adult that held him close and took away the memories with his magic power of singing.
Even as an earth pony, his voice was magical to the colt and sent him to a world far, far away from the pain and sounds of his mother.
The voice sang to him in the same angelic tone that he had listened to for hours in his youth. He looked around in shock and took in his surroundings.
He was standing on something firm, yet soft. An orange mist with green fire wisping through it, the singing came from all around him, lulling him into a comfort he knew only when he was drunk and sinking into the couch he kept from his old home.
The place he’d be cuddled and lulled into safety was the only thing, other than himself, a few random items, and a few photos, to leave that hellhole.
“Ever Last,” seemingly a thousand voices whispered as the song halted, “why did she do it?”
The breath caught in his throat at the question.
Uncounted time passed before he narrowed his eyes. “Because she’s wicked.”
“Wicked.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Evil?”
“N-no, not evil. S-she just,” he sighed. He knew she was in the wrong in every way imaginable, but she loved him. “She loved me, but showed it the wrong ways.”
“Wicked, molester, stealer of innocence.”
“I wasn’t innocent. The moment I let her start-”
The green fire erupted, startling him and sending a wave of heat to his body. “No pony has a choice when it starts. We are knowing. We are experience. We are many, hurt by those we love,” the voices whispered in unison.
“B-but, what’re you doing here with me? Why not bug her or somepony that matters,” he said dejectedly.
“You matter, Ever Last. You matter most of all,” they whispered as the flames formed an opening to a blue doorway. “You will face the truth, and make your choice.”
The door waited for him as he approached it, the silence was deafening until the handle of the door clicked. His approach opened it, bathing him in yellow light.
He was standing before his father, who was crying in the bathtub.
“N-no, please…”
The bathroom door opened and he spun around, his mother was standing in the doorway glaring at him.
“Mother, please, help him! He’s-”
“And what do you think you’re doing?” his mother asked.
“I-I don’t-”
“Please, Kat, leave him alone.”
Ever stood still and watched as his mother sneered. She wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to his father. He moved back and to the side as she moved closer.
“Leave who alone?”
“Our son,” he replied with a sniffle, “he cries into my chest after every night you… sleep with him.”
She stopped and took a step back, a look of shock on her face. “W-wh-w,” she stammered.
“I’ve known for the last year. It’s ruining him. He doesn’t know what to say or think, let alone what to do. If you don’t stop, I’ll show you the pain it causes him, and me.”
“Oh, really?” she challenged standing confidently. “You can’t even file your hooves, what’re you going to do in a bathtub? Pee and let it drain to teach me a lesson?” she mocked.
“Promise me, that you’ll stop,” he said said trembling looking down.
“I’ll promise nothing, you’re a worthless stallion and a sad excuse for a male. Ever Last is everything you’re not, and with luck, maybe he’ll even give me that filly I always wanted.”
His father winced and knelt down, rising with a knife. The knife. The knife that had ended his life, the knife they couldn’t find… Ever’s favorite knife. He never knew…
“Promise me you’ll stop and keep him safe,” he said as she gulped loudly. He swung his head quickly and the blade pierced his side.
“Father?! NO!”
His mother stood still in shock as the stallion collapsed to the floor of the tub and coughed, nickered, and grasped the handle again.
Pulling it from his body he looked to Kat pleadingly. “Please,” he sobbed, “keep him safe and teach him to be all everything that I couldn’t be.”
The blue door reappeared and he wasted no time running through it, back to the silence, fire, and orange mist.
“Why?! Why would you show me that?”
“You have a choice,” a single stallions’ voice spoke up, “you can represent us, those that have lost. Those that have been hurt and abused. Those that have died in vain. Take our pain to the ponies who wander the world, causing harm to others and show them what they’re doing to others.
“Or, you can live as you have been for the duration of your life until you die and join us.”
“B-but…”
“Son.” Ever spun to his rear and looked at the stallion that just called him.
“...Daddy?!”
In a flash, Ever had tackled his father to the floor and was squeezing him tightly.
“Please, son. Don’t hate her, she’s among us now. Trapped for her crimes, but free because of her own abuse. Be our herald. Share our pain to the world, so none others have to suffer.”
“D-daddy, I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you.”
The whispers returned in a cacophony of cheers as a tall orange pony appeared from the mist.
“You are no longer Ever Last, you are now Legion. And you will bring our pain and sorrow to the world.”
Legion laid down on his belly and adjusted his limbs like he were a sitting cat, his tail curled around his left flank, brushing against his cutie mark of a yellow towel and a spray bottle.
“As you wish… who are you?”
A sharp toothed grin graced the orange pony’s mouth. “Rancor.”
Legion opened his eyes, the ceiling graced his view only this time, it was plaster and wasn't his. He groaned as he recognized the patterns on the walls as he turned his head.
He chuckled as he found himself in his old room, remade into a clinic room. No matter what he tried, he couldn't escape his past, not even in death.
He remembered the dream he'd had and felt a rush of warmth in his eyes, the outlines of three ponies were in the house. Each an earth pony, two of them were black silhouettes while one was burning a changeling green, like the fire in his dream.
He focused on the fire and felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. Blackness surrounded the stallion as a unknown force slowly took control of his mind, making his vision swim. His body became paralyzed as a light came into view, his sight starting to return; only the sight wasn’t his own.
A vision of an elderly mare bucking a pony in the head flashed in his mind, sending him gasping back to the room; his vision returned to normal and he was staring at the closed door.
He remembered what he was told in his dream; to bring the pain of the hurt to the damned.
Entering the shadow sight again he looked for the mare again. She had exited the clinic and was making her way down the stairs when he felt a pull inside his mind. He let it have its way and before he understood how he was inside her mind, watching from her eyes as she walked into the street and turned toward the market.
Her thoughts were random, flittering from items she wanted to buy to the condition of her carpet at home. The room looked strangely familiar though.
Without knowing how, he took control of her right foreleg and she fell, face first into the gravel road; scuffing her muzzle.
A memory flashed into her mind he watched and seethed at. She was a middle aged mare standing over a slightly older mare who was staring at her in fear. It was then that he realized that he was in the body of Miss Mist. The one mare that he thought always cared about him.
In a blink of an eye, before anypony could even attempt to comprehend what had happened, Mist had found herself running away, red hoofprints following her from where the elder mare lay dead. It was then in the memory he heard a stallion shouting 'You killed her!'"
Shortly after an image of the cowering mare, lying dead, blurred into the vision before he snapped back to his own body in bed.
He refocused and returned to Mist, then reached out into the crowd of ponies who were helping the mare up and grabbed a change purse from a snow white pegasus with cherry red hair with black streaks and teal blue eyes.
Legion winked at the mare before he began bucking Mist’s body, screaming and forcing the others back who watched in awe, as the mare stopped, falling to the ground, scratching her body as he began having an apparent seizure.
Stopping and sitting tall he spoke softly. "I killed her," he said from her mouth, "and I deserve to be punished, in the name of Legion."
With those words she poured the bag of bits into her mouth and inhaled sharply.
Stallions and mares screamed and began to run around her in a panic, unintentionally blocking those attempting help, from aiding her as she choked, laying on the street, scratching at her throat as he left her body.
Legion came back to reality, laying in his hospital bed and hummed contently at the knowledge, and fulfillment, knowing that he didn’t waste any time, using the power to fulfill his father's wishes.
